Tuesday, 19 September 2023

Biopsy #6

I’m in anteroom, the one just outside the operating
theatre. I’m flat out, trollied, cannula
in my wrist, oxygen mask on my face, chest stuck with ECG pads, and wearing an
angel gown. It’s cold, the land of
anticipation always is. They are talking
above me, making the day sound the
jolliest in the world. We’re just
giving you something to breathe, says the anaesthetist and then I’m gone.

In post-op, a nanosecond
later, I’m wrapped in warm air. There’s a voice saying something about it
taking time getting my temperature up.
There is light. Everything out of
focus, double, moving about. I try to probe
where I’ve been. There’s no substance, no experience, no sensation. I know time has shifted but I have no idea by
how much. Could be minutes, could be
days. There’s a sense of stretched out
space having been filled with something outside my comprehension. It’s a wavering perception that’s gone almost
as soon as it arrives. Here Ginsberg
would have met with angels and Kerouac would have seen the sparking fractured light pouring from the
diamond sutra. This is the place of
white corridors and great lights, of peace and gladness, of cocooned protection,
the cessation of time and the end to all fears.

The warm air is arriving via a tube attached to the bottom
of whatever it is that covering me. Hospital
staff in gowns float by, tending, manipulating, checking monitors, watching my
temperature as it slowly goes up. You
written a book, haven’t you?, asks someone in a gown. I nod.
Are you going to write about all this?
I smile. Sure, just give me time.

I get a visit from the scrubs-wearing surgeon. In and gone in minutes, another face above
me. It looks good, he tells me. But the lab will decide. He’s taken samples from the cancer growth
sites, rich cystitis red from being blasted by six weeks of BCG, angry and
still letting me know. It’ll take about
a fortnight. How do you want to
proceed? Shall I call you or do you want
to come in? Both, I tell him. Both.

Back in the recovery ward they give me toast and tea. I realise that haven’t eaten anything for
almost 24 hours. Around me are others recovering from their tribulations. Men flat out, wired to monitors, hoses
snaking fluids from their wounds to bags on carry-frames set under their
beds. Tubes delivering blood. Bleeping lights on screens.

I realise then, and with considerable joy, that I have no catheter installed. A nurse checks my blood pressure and takes my
temperature again. You’re doing fine,
she says. Temp is normal. You can go once you’ve peed. You know the routine. She puts a grey compressed cardboard urine bottle (male) onto my bedside table. Use this. Ah yes, I know these things of old.

I find the water jug, there behind the tissues, and drink its contents. I wait ten minutes then head for the lav. It’s like a gusher this time, all hesitation
forgotten. Pain, if there is any, is a
pale ghost and the world is not swirling.
I can stand without leaning against anything. I’m in charge. I fill
the receptacle and proudly deliver it to the nurse’s station. You need 100 ml from me before I can leave,
right? I say. Well here’s a gallon.

Back home I score the process, on a scale 1 to 10 where 1 is
awful and 10 is great: